Modern Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) systems typically analyze and display radar data for a user to interpret. The data can be displayed to the user in a variety of ways, usually in “waterfall” plots that include a Two-Dimensional (2D) rendering of a most recent scan. However, prior art plots usually take one of three forms—as A-Scans, B-Scans or C-Scans. An A-Scan represents a single channel of a scan, and it is a line trace similar to the display on an oscilloscope. An A-Scan is a one dimensional data set with its progression being in the depth or time dimension. A B-Scan is a 2D slice of either a down-track or a cross-track in the ground (down-track and cross-track are explained in more detail with regard to FIG. 9). B-scans are often textured or color mapped. A C-Scan is similar to what many people call a “plan view” or a “top down view”, and it is produced by an algorithm that collapses the received energy up into a 2D representation of energy under the ground as seen from a bird's eye view.
FIG. 9 is an illustration of prior art display 900. Display 900 includes down-track display 901 and cross-track display 902. Display 900 shows the data from a radar system that takes a series of 2D scans over a length. Down-track B-Scan 901 is a single channel of the radar array at various down-track distances as the array moves forward in time. Cross-track B-Scan 920 represents the plane across the width of the linear array at a single down-track distance.
A disadvantage of prior art solutions is that they are not intuitive. For instance, a user often is unable to discern the Three-Dimensional (3D) shape of an anomaly (e.g., a land mine) from prior art displays, such as C-scans and scans 901 and 902. As a result, human radar operators receive much specialized training focusing on how to interpret the 2D images that they see in radar information. Thus, prior art systems tend to require a large training investment, as well as much human interpretation during operation.
An additional disadvantage of prior art systems is that they tend to process an enormous amount of data, making it difficult to produce a 3D display in real-time. For example, a commonly used algorithm, known as the F1 algorithm, reduces received data by dropping, e.g., eighty percent of the data and aggregating the remaining data into units called “depth bins.” The F1 algorithm then drops a subset of the depth bins that show a weak return and creates a C-scan therefrom. However, this still leaves enough data to strain the processing power of most military computing systems. As a result, systems that provide real-time radar data rarely are able to generate a 3D display. In fact, 3D GPR displays are currently limited to systems that are not real-time systems, such as archaeological systems that take hours to give final results.